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Chinaco for Dinner

Last week I attended a dinner at Tres Agaves in San Francisco with Gabriel and Guillermo Gonzalez of Chinaco Tequila. Tres Agaves is hosting monthly distillers' dinners with a different tequila brand each time.

Chinaco is a special tequila brand for a couple reasons. First, it is the only distillery located in Tamaulipas. Until the 1970's, all agave for tequila had to come from the state of Jalisco. Then the area was expanded to allow for more agave, and currently includes Jalisco and areas of four bordering states, plus part of Tamaulipas apart from the rest.

The other reason it's special is because it is cited as the first premium tequila on the US market. In the early 1980's Robert Denton began importing Chinaco and selling it as a high-end product as opposed to the rough spirit it was known as historically. (Some good historical information can be found here and here.)

The distillery closed in the late 1980's and reopened in the early 1990's by the founder's four sons, including Gabriel and Guillermo who were at the dinner. Interestingly, in the past two years the agave for the tequila has been sourced from Atotonilco in the highlands region (Don Julio, Siete Leguas) instead of from Tamaulipas. I'd like to learn more about this- highland agave is much prized but it seems odd to truck in a bunch of it to another agave growing region.

The barrels for Chinaco are also unusual in that they're first used for bourbon, then they're used for scotch whisky before they're shipped to Mexico for use in tequila. Thus they're likely pretty inert, imparting less wood (caramel, vanilla, butterscotch) notes to the tequila than the average barrels.

All in all, an interesting dinner with an educational aspect- and not bad in price, either. $75 includes many margaritas, a tasting of the night's range of tequilas, a three-course dinner, and tax and tip. Dinners are on the third Thursday of the month. The schedule for next month should be on the website soon.

Update: Here is the upcoming schedule:

December: Don Julio
January: Fortaleza
February: Corazon
March Arette
April: 7 Leguas
May: Corralejo

Relax, Your NutraSweet Margarita is Safe

I posted about the new legal definition of the Caipirinha demanding real sugar, but luckily for these folks, no such legislation exists for the Margarita.

Yes, it is a box of aspartame-sweetened portable Margarita packets that you can take to the bar. From the press release:

According to Johnson, Zilch Sugar Free Margarita Mixers are a delicious alternative to high carb, high calorie Margaritas. "Before Zilch, I couldn't enjoy Margaritas with my friends at restaurants. Now, I just order Tequila and water on the rocks, and add my little packet of Zilch."

Tequila and water on the rocks? YES. Order that in a Margarita glass with a spoon for stirring and watch the bartender's head explode.

Agavation

Agave syrup backlash! CHOW.com links to some stories on agave syrup and how it might not be so good for you.

But at least one of those stories is not so scientific. Arguing that the syrup is not a raw food but often labeled as raw syrup (a point he's totally right on- no disagreement there) he argues about all the terrible health problems that it might cause. I would have believed much of it, except for this:

"Agave Syrup was originally used to make tequila.  When Agave Syrup ferments, it literally turns into tequila.  The enzymatic activity therefore MUST be stopped so that the syrup will not turn into tequila in your cupboard."

Riiiiight, much the same way simple syrup will literally turn into rum and mashed potatoes will literally become vodka if you leave them on the counter overnight. I wish!

Agave is a lot like a sweet potato- it even tastes like one when it's baked. In the raw state, it tastes like a yucky plant, then you bake it and it gets sweeter as it converts into sugar. Yam-tastic. Then you squish out the sugar and ferment it into a beer, then you distill the beer into a spirit. In this case, the spirit is tequila.

Is that beer bad, or unhealthy sugar? I dunno, but if so, it's probably bad in the same way maple syrup is bad. But I certainly wouldn't take the raw food guy's analysis at face value. Neither would I trust one brand that says (okay, implies) that the other brands add artificial sweeteners to their agave syrup.

What's interesting to me (because I am a nerd) is that these methods for producing agave syrup first squish out the liquid then bake it to get sugar syrup. In most tequila making, they bake first and squish later. That is, most with the exception of some large tequila makers who use a diffusion band" that can extract  the fermentable substances from agave first, and bake second. (Could this statement be totally incorrect? Yes, as I learned it on day 5 of a five-day tequila binge through Mexico.)

Oh right, the point: If you're using agave syrup for it's low-glycemic fructose whatever then it's certainly worth a closer look at what you're getting. If you're using it to avoid high-fructose corn syrup or as a lower-calorie drink  sweetener, I don't think there's any need to panic until we learn a bit more.

Is big bad?

Jordan Mackay discusses liquor at Slow Food Nation last week in San Francisco, and seems to take issue with the choices of slow spirits. Prairie Vodka is owned by Phillips Distilling, Maker's Mark Bourbon isn't made from organic corn, and 4 Copas doesn't provide enough information on their website about their organic nature. All true, but this doesn't necessarily mean these brands are greenwashing.

He then mentions small brands he wishes were represented, like Anchor Distilling, 209 Gin, Del Maguey mezcal, and Clear Creek's Eau de Vie of Douglas Fir. In the case of the fir eau de vie and mezcal, the product celebrate local traditions or ingredients and that's absolutely what Slow Food should be promoting. Good point.

In the case of the gin, at least at 209 they order in high-proof spirit from the same type of Midwestern distillery that Phillips Distilling produces before infusing it with botanicals and redistilling, and additionally you have to truck it all the way to California. It's not that 209 is a bad company- far from it- but it's not like they're growing grain in Golden Gate Park and picking juniper berries from Muir Woods to make the stuff.

I think the underlying prejudice here (not to pick on Jordan; he's just my launch point) is against large companies, whereas small companies get a break in peoples' eyes just for being small. But large companies can accomplish a lot if they want to. Herradura has some pretty major waste and water recycling facilities; bourbon barrels are shipped all over the world to age scotch, rum, and tequila; Distilled Resources and Phillips can afford to get their organic certification to produce Square One and Prairie. I don't think Prairie Vodka is trying to imply that Phillips is a green company; just that this is a green product. 4 Copas spent a ton of money getting organic certified, and they pay for farmers to get their fields certified.

We should certainly celebrate brands like Del Maguey (and grappa from Italy, Scandinavian aquavit, genever from Holland, Amarula from South Africa, etc. ) as the Slow-est of booze and use them as an example instead of Prairie and Maker's. And greenwashed brands like Vodka 360 deserve to be called out on it. But I think it's a mistake to give a free pass to small brands just because they're small and to condemn larger ones just for being big.

Reading material: post-European edition

You may not have noticed thanks to the incredible blog technology that allows me to write posts in advance, but I was out of the country all last week. Here are some things that have stuck in my brain as I catch up on my reading:

Eric Felten (I pretty much link to his column every week) writes about the Sherry Cobbler, and how it popularized both the cocktail shaker and the straw. 

Then he wrote about Georgian (not the US one) brandy.

W. Blake Gray says that "Nigori is the White Zinfandel of sake," but found one he actually likes.

Partying like it's 1905, towns in New Zealand move to ban absinthe. 

They're dropping like flies in SF! Thomas Waugh left The Alembic for the shores of NYC, and Jacqueline Patterson is no longer managing the bar at Orson but is still in town. Unconfirmed rumor is that Carlos Yturria is no longer at Grand Pu Bah and is now bar manager at Bacar.

Heaven Hill is releasing a Tabasco-branded tequila. Now that's a spicy margarita!

Tasting tequila terroir

Two of the tequilas I wrote about in my June story in Wine & Spirits about tequila terroir are just now available in the United States. Ocho, which is imported by Altamar Brands (Kubler absinthe, Right gin), was given a packaging facelift from the modern look it has in Europe where it was first launched to one emphasizing the terroir- "Single Estate" is right on the bottle and "terroir" and "vintage" all over the press release. The bottles are labeled with the name of the estate and year of harvest of the agave. (Click for a larger image.)

The other brand is Maestro Dobel, which they're calling "diamond tequila" I guess because it's clear. That product is a blend of blanco, reposado, and anejo tequilas that is then filtered to give the final clear color. I think the slogan should be, "Looks like a blanco, tastes like a repo." They also label the bottle with the estate, bottle number, ranch and blender of the product.

"Vintage" is an odd word to use for tequila, as the agave harvested in one year may not have been planted in the same year. Agave grows for 6-12 years usually, depending on location and how soon the distiller wants to harvest it to achieve a certain flavor profile. Fields are planted at the same time, but fields aren't miles wide (the ones I've seen, anyway) and look more like plots- there are many of them visible from one spot. Industrial tequila harvesters may take every plant in a field, whereas the boutique brands will select individual plants to harvest over the course of a three years before scrapping the rest and replanting. There was a frost in the Highlands one year, and that one year's weather caused variations in several years' harvests, according to a couple of distillers I spoke with.

One person in Europe and one in the US told me they each preferred the 2008 versions of Ocho to the 2007 line. (You can find Ocho at Zare at Fly Trap, and I'm pretty sure they'll have it at Tres Agaves as well as Tommy's Mexican.)

In any case, consumers of tequila have heard about Highland and Lowland differences in tequila for a while, though only the Highland brands have been promoting their terroir. In these new products, they're going a little deeper- telling us the estate, the year of harvest, and a few people who helped put the final product together. I like where all this is going.

Technology vs. Terroir

In Lawrence Osbourne's The Accidental Connoisseur he discusses California wine history and how innovation was the name of the game. Initially the producers in America believed that modern technology could win over old-world techniques and produce better wines. The technology developed (and still is developing) to improve wines or to match specific popular flavor profiles.

Later, some vineyards began introducing old-world concepts like closer row spacing that would necessitate hand-harvesting, and delicate presses to replicate hand-pressing. He visited Opus One and found that at the heart of the high-tech operation they were using old, labor-intensive operations to actually produce the wine, then using all the tech just to measure it. Old-world techniques became the sign of luxury brands- and charged prices to match.

This reminds me of the current state of the tequila industry, which is earlier along on this path. Long ago, tequila was made using the tahona, the stone wheel that crushes the agave, along with fermentation vats in the ground and clay ovens. Now most brands have moved to using more efficient equipment like autoclaves for cooking and diffusion band extractors for getting the most sugar out of the baked agave.

But in recent times, old-style techniques have become a selling point. El Tesoro uses a tahona and most everything else in the original style. In this case, they just haven't upgraded- and don't need to. "We make you pay for it," says their Master Distiller Carlos Camarena. Herradura lets their tequila naturally ferment, which is pretty amazing at the volumes they do. The rest of the distillery has moved to high tech, while they display their original equipment in an on-site tequila museum.

This operating middle-ground between low-tech and high-tech seems to be where many high-end distilleries are today. Tezon may be pulling an Opus One- using a tahona to crush the agave but surrounding it with a high-tech new distillery. (From what I hear anyway, I haven't been there yet.) In many ways, the high-tech people are saying, "We can distill the terroir out of tequila" like the California wineries did  years ago, and the low-tech ones (and every place in the Highlands) use terroir as a selling point.